Grandma's Birthday

I miss my Grandma... I really miss her and everything about her. There are so many days I have questions that I need to ask her; so many old photos unidentified. She and my grandpa "Pop" lived next door to us all our growing up years. I spent a lot of time at my grandma's house. Grandma would get the old photos out for me to look at and tell me stories about the people in them. I, fortunately remember most stories and some I didn't get to finish hearing~Mother would come over and say, "Now don't bother Grandma with all those old people in those pictures." One of the happiest nights I can recall recently was when I inherited the box of old photos and I put them in my closet just like Grandma did and I fell asleep feeling soo good because all those people I really didn't know were close to me again. Grandma taught me how to jump rope, how to skip and play hop scotch on the sidewalk, how to make an angel food cake. Grandma would brush and fix my hair. Grandma never wore a pair of pants in her life. She always wore hosiery and a house dress every day...I loved that! She got up very early in the morning (I used to tell kids when I was in the first grade that my grandparents got up at 1am to eat breakfast~that was how early I thought it was~the kids didn't believe me about 1am)and fixed a beautiful scrumptious breakfast for herself and Pop. He always had Grape Nuts cereal (we teased that he ate gravel)and Grandma had oatmeal(we teased she ate mush). They ate at 6am. By 9:30am Grandma would begin to cook dinner...a wonderful roast and potatoes and carrots...and sweet iced tea. I loved to go over while they ate because the house smelled soo good and I loved hearing their false teeth click while they ate. Haha..I love that sound. After they ate dinner which was about 11am I would sit on the yellow stool next to the sink and watch Grandma wash the dishes. She had big hands and I loved watching those hands work so deftly~washing, rinsing, drying and wiping the sink dry. After that chore was done she would watch her "programs" as she called them...the soap operas. I would watch them with her. After they were finished she would go to her dresser drawer where she kept all her powder and face cream and bobby pins all neatly placed and organized and I loved the smell of that drawer! Oh, the powdery, perfumy girl smell! She would 'cream' her face as she called it with Lady Esther cold cream and tissue it off and brush her hair and put on another pretty house dress. At this point she would let me look at the jewelry in her jewelry box...that was the best! It was so pretty and I loved the antique jewelry, brooches and rings. She told me stories of them and when I turned 12 she gave me an antique garnet ring. I cherished that ring and still have it. When I turned 16 she gave me another antique ring with a raised stone. I later give that ring to my sister because I felt sorry for her that she didn't get a ring from Grandma. Grandma and Pop knew I loved anything antique and knew I would take very good care of whatever they gave me. There was an antique garnet star brooch that I loved and she said it had been my great grandmother's on Pop's side but Pop being superstitious said no one was ever to wear the brooch because his mother had it on when she was killed in an automobile accident. My mother inherited it and finally gave it to me before she passed away. I will never wear it but I love it soo much...It might as well be a trunk full of garnets as far as I'm concerned..I cherish it so! After Grandma prettied up for the rest of her day it was time to take a little nap on the couch and then she would rise and fix a very small supper for herself and Pop, usually sandwiches from the meat of the dinner and sweet tea again. That would be at 4:30 pm. Around 7pm they would have ice cream and on Saturday night would watch Lawrence Welk. I loved to go over there then and watch with them. They would retire to bed at 8:30pm. This framed prayer always hung beside the headboard of my Grandma's bed. It hangs next to my headboard now. I loved my Grandma's daily routine...I wanted to be just like her. They lived very long healthy lives I think because of the wonderful balanced lifestyle they had. She lived to be 92. Pop lived to be 95. They both died in their own homes in their own beds. They were so lucky. Grandma would have been 121 this year! Happy Birthday, Grandma!

My Handsome Artistic Friend

I have a childhood friend, Lee. Well,we weren't exactly what you would call friends but he was the best friend of my boyfriend and now ex-husband's in school so he was my friend too. Every body knew every body in our school because it was small; we had all grown up together, most from kindergarten right through senior year. So that qualifies for "friend". Last year I was on the committee for our 40th (ugh) class reunion and I was in charge of rounding people up via various social networks. Since I am always on the computer and on a committee with a mission, I became bold! I found Lee and thought I would write an email to him to see how he is doing after 42 years. He moved away to Michigan during our Junior year. Lo and behold, he wrote back and I discovered that he is quite the accomplished artist and photographer and musician! Oh, this guy has it all! He was one of the most gorgeous guys in our school and still is besides being so talented! And you know how important that is to us, girls! Wink... We now converse through email quite frequently and he is the easiest man to talk to...he's done so many different things and lived so many different places in the world. His original artwork, be it photography, painting or sculpting, has such depth and thought provoking quality..he has the uncanny ability to capture the exact mood of the character in each portrait~to capture the feeling of their momentary thought. His perspective is often times mesmerizing. I find myself getting lost in the architectural photoart and I make up stories in my mind about the people he saw through that lens.! If I had the money and the wall space I would have all Lee Kuersten Originals in my home! I invite you to take a nice long gaze at Lee's website and at what Lee creates..I think you will agree...so glad to have him for my friend. Here is the link:
http://members.toast.net/kuersten/index.html ENJOY!

For the Love of Light

I love sunsets but I really love different lamps. My daughter teases me about all my lamps that you can't read by...I always send her an imaginative lamp that she can't read by for birthdays and Christmas...hahaha. My son on the other hand has lots of mood lights...who'd a thunk it?

The Larder of Life

What would you like to eat? Let's go look in the pantry and see if we have something we can whip up quickly....Oh! Don't let that sign worry you..it's a joke in response to a tease from my son! Here's the table, I cleared it off for you...so have a seat. Let's see...what can we make? We have flour and sugar and butter and cream....we'll fix crepes with asparagus and mushrooms in a creamy bernaise...and look! We even have some sweet vermouth...a pantry always has the staples of life.

Time Change....

Will our moods change with the time change...we lose an hour of sleep but gain an hour of daylight? Just a thought..
Spring forward!

Face to Face

Face Collection..never a blank expression

The Repast in My Mind

I wish I could step back in time once again to be absorbed in these wonderful, huge family dinners when all my relatives on my father's side sat at long tables in the side yard on a Sunday afternoon and ate the scrumptious ethnic dishes my grandmother cooked by herself. We would invite the priest of our local church that was just around the corner to dinner every Sunday. After we stuffed our tummies with all the wonderful kibbee and koosa and tabouleh, cabbage rolls, etc., we would go to another house down the street to talk and talk and sometimes we would dance to the accordion polka music that my uncle's father-in-law Pa Zelenkiwicz would play. Every relative and friend lived on the same street so it was so easy to be together. Then after dark on those warm summer nights we cousins would leave behind the adults to their own entertainment and we would walk around uptown and talk about important things that teenagers talk about and we would visit some of the shut-in older people that we knew and sit on their front porches and they would give us candy and we would talk about our ambitions and what our lives were going to be like when we grew up. The older people were always interested and never judged..they loved to hear what was important to the young people and listened intently at how we were going to "change the world". When we got back to our grandparents' house another real treat would be waiting for us that we didn't ever want to miss. We got to see our Sitoo (grandmother in Arabic) with her hair taken down just before going to bed. We marveled at how long her hair really was 'cause we always saw it up in a bun on her head during the day. I wish the past wasn't just memories.